Sorry I haven’t updated in almost forever. I really shouldn’t wait for my mother to send me emails to remind me to update this blog, but this seems to be my habit. I meant to update earlier, but the heat and humidity have left me exhausted and feeling nauseous at the end of most days. I guess I better do a better job of staying hydrated, because the summer is only going to get worse.
A few weeks ago, I went to visit Fudooka High school’s cultural festival or bunkasai. My friends Teresa and Hanna work there, and invited me to come along. These are the same girls who I went to Korea with. Fudooka high school is in Kazo city, which is in Eastern Saitama. I arrived at Fudooka high school a little after noon. I did not have very clear directions to find the school from Kazo station, but I was able ti find the school by following all of the students in their school uniforms 😉
I found my friends Teresa, Hanna, and Eric down in the courtyard of the high school. There were different dance groups giving their performances in the middle of the courtyard. The dancers were okay, but I think the dance club at Inagakuen is more talented. After watching some of the dance performances outside, we headed back inside to see some of the rooms the students had put together. The first one we went into was a kind of hybrid haunted house/ maze game. It was called “Gaigo Hazard.” It’s a play on words for “foreign language” and BioHazard. Basically, it was a parody of the BioHazard franchise, which is known as Resident Evil back in America.
I went in with Hanna and Eric. The plot of the room was that the students were sick, and we had to solve puzzles and get clues to help heal the sick students. In the first room, we had to match the French, English, Chinese, and German words for different numbers so that we could go past a door. In the next room, we had to sift through newspaper to find a giant orange pill to give to the sick student in the room. In the last room, we had to re-arrange the bookshelf in a certain order, and look for the last clue inside of a locker. Hanna was really eager to solve the puzzle, and yanked open the door really fast. A student dressed as a zombie jumped out, and Hanna literally fell right on her butt. I knew someone was going to jump out of the locker at some point, but I just let Hanna go for the locker anyway.
We went into another room that was Toy Story themed, and the point of that maze game was to play these mini games and find one of Andy’s lost toys.
The last room we went to had a super long wait time, but I really wanted to do it, and I was only able to come to the cultural festival for one day. It was called “Hurry Potter” and it was a lot of fun. All of the students running the room were wearing Hogwarts robes and house ties. In the first room, we had to match the spells to what they do. Good thing Hanna was with us, because she can read kanji, and was able to actually read the spells. I don’t remember the second part very well, but the third part was Quidditch. They had these three loops hanging from the ceiling, and you earned more points if you stood further back to throw the Quaffle into the rings.
The last part was when you faced Voldemort. The Philosopher’s Stone was on a dias in the middle of the room. The floor was painted like a chessboard, and we had to spin a wheel to see how many steps we could move forward. If we got close enough to the Philosopher’s Stone in three turns, then we defeated Voldemort. The good news is, we won 😉 Of course, after we finished going through “Hurry Potter” the cultural festival was closing for the day. Most of the other guests had to leave the school, but I stuck around a little while longer with Hanna and Teresa. I saw the office where they work, and Teresa showed me the Ikebana display that the teachers made for the cultural festival.
I’m glad I got to see the Fudooka bunkasai even if it was only for that Saturday. Before then, I had only seen the Inagakuen bunkasai. Of course Inagakuen’s cultural festival is impressive, but it was nice to see how it is done differently at another high school. I think Inagakuen has better outdoor performances, and decorations, but at Fudooka, the students are more creative with their rooms, and the kind of games they provide. At Inagakuen, I feel many of the room activities are just thrown together, and then many of the other rooms just sell snacks. I’d like to see more cultural festivals at other high schools once the time comes around.
Anyway, I couldn’t go the next day, because I had to help with a debate tournament at Inagakuen the next day. It was a tournament for our English Parliamentary Debate team. Ms. Yanagawa had asked us ALTs to help with this debate tournament a few weeks earlier, and when we arrived it turned out we were listed as just “trainee” judges, and our final judgement didn’t actually affect the outcome of many of the debate rounds. I can’t complain too much though, as I still earned a day’s worth of daikyu that I can use for summer break.
Schools from Tokyo, Saitama, and even Tochigi came for this tournament. This time, there was no final debate match for everyone to watch. They just added up the scores each school had earned, and announced the winner at the closing ceremony. Inagakuen didn’t win, but each of our small teams of 3 won at least one round out of three that day.
Some of the debate motions that day were: The government will require couples to renew their marriage license every five years and Japan should host the 2020 Olympics.
Anyway, not long after the debate tournament, Aaron and I learned that Ms. Yanagawa was going to go on sick leave soon, so we had to take care of the Oral Communication 2 class by ourselves. It was stressful at first. I understand that Ms. Yanagawa was feeling overworked and needs a break, but her sick leave came suddenly. Aaron and I taught the class by ourselves with our own lesson plans, trying to get the students to work on certain debate skills we thought they needed to improve on. It was very stressful, because Yanagwa left before she told us what direction she wanted the class to go in, and without giving us a general outline of what the students should be doing until the end of term!
Luckily, as of last week, Ms. Obana stepped in and is filling in Yanagawa’s place for the Oral Communication 2 class with me and Aaron. I’ve taught Oral Communication 2 with Ms. Obana before, but that was almost 2 years ago! I’m glad she’s here. She’s a great teacher to work with, and she’s helping us get on track with the students. The students are definitely speaking up more now, it’s great!
In more fun news, my friend Stefanie and I went to go see the Takarazuka Revue perform this past Sunday! We couldn’t get advance tickets, so we had to wake up early and take the first trains down to the Takarazuka Theater in Tokyo. I met Stefanie at Yurakucho station, and together we walked towards the theater where we met her friend Joey, who was already waiting in line for the same day tickets sales. We were very lucky, because we ended up being numbers 20-23 in line, and they only sell same day tickets to the first forty people in line. I would have been very disappointed if I had gotten up at 5 am on a Sunday, and not have been able to see the show.
For those of you who don’t know, the Takarazuka Revue is an all female theater troupe that started in Takarazuka, Japan in the 1940’s. The city of Takarazuka is pretty close to Osaka, and is actually also the hometown of Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy. The Takarazuka Revue is known for the women acting as men, and wearing heavy makeup, and elaborate costumes. They usually do musicals based off of different girls comics and cartoons. They’ve even done a play off of a video game called “Phoenix Wright.” Usually people go to their home theater in Takarazuka, but they have grown in popularity over the last few years, so now they have a Tokyo theater, and will even have some plays on tour, and have divided into five different separate troupes that perform different plays at different times.
The play we saw was called “Rose of Versailles,” which is based off of a girl’s manga of the same name. It’s about Marie Antoinette and her secret love affair with a Dutch man during the french revolution. The costumes and the set were AMAZING! We sat all the way in the back, so we couldn’t see all of the set, but we still enjoyed it. The singing and the overly dramatic acting were just spot on. I felt like I was watching a girly anime in real life. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had read the manga, or knew the story better beforehand, because I would confuse the characters many times. However, the Takarazuka Revue is supposed to do Romeo and Juliet soon, so I might go see that, since I already know the story.
I’m glad I saw the Takarazuka Revue perform. I can finally cross off another thing on my Japan bucket list. If any more of my friends and family come visit me in Japan, I may take them to go see it of they are interested, because it’s just that fun. Maybe I’ll go down to Takrazuka and see a show on their home turf.
Jet Set Victoria 